8 things an in­te­rior de­signer would do – and save

WHEN IT comes to re­dec­o­rat­ing parts of our house, of­ten we want to give them a bit of at­ten­tion and a new lease on life with­out break­ing the bank.

1 Be re­ally clear on what needs chang­ing

You don’t need to change an en­tire room to make a big dif­fer­ence, so pick a few small changes that will lift the en­tire room. Stand back and think about what would make the big­gest impact. Is it a fea­ture wall? Is it chang­ing over your ac­ces­sories?

2 Up­cy­cle wher­ever you can

This is about cre­at­ing some­thing new from some­thing old. For ex­am­ple, re-cover an old chair, or paint old pine fur­ni­ture. A great trick is also wall­pa­per­ing the inside of cup­boards to cre­ate a brand new look and feel with max­i­mum impact.

3 Be­fore you start a project, cre­ate a mood board

It will help you know how the over­all fin­ish of the room will look and feel. Find a fo­cal point; what mood are you try­ing to cre­ate?

4 Think care­fully about your light­ing

Light­ing cre­ates mood and a nice en­ergy. Use it to high­light dif­fer­ent parts of the room that may have been left for­got­ten.

5 Re­mem­ber, less is more

Try not to cram in too much fur­ni­ture and cre­ate clut­ter which draws the at­ten­tion away from the other lovely things in the room.

6 Your sofa doesn’t al­ways need to sit against the walls

If your room is large, bring the seat­ing area into the mid­dle of the room.

7 Mir­rors are a great way to bounce light around and give the feel­ing of a big­ger room. 8 If you have a small space, choose fur­ni­ture with legs that lift it off the floor to cre­ate an il­lu­sion of a big­ger space.